Mark Felton – författare

The author, who lives in Shanghai, sets out to demonstrate that the British military has been at the forefront of many of the great changes that have swept China over the last two centuries.He devotes chapters to the various wars, military adventures and rebellions that regularly punctuated Sino/British relationships since the 1st Opium War 1839-1842. This classic example of Imperial intervention saw the establishment of Hong Kong and Shanghai as key trading centers. The Second Opium War and the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions saw the advancement of British influence despite determined but unsuccessful efforts by the Chinese to loosen the grip of Western domination. The Royal Navy's might ensured that, by gunboat diplomacy, trading rights and new posts were established and great fortunes made.But in the 1940s the British grossly underestimated Japanese military might and intentions with disastrous results. After the Second World War the British returned to find that the Americans had supplanted them. The Communists victory in the Civil War sealed British and Western fates and, while Hong Kong remained under British control until 1997, the end of British rule was almost inevitable. But the handover was a masterly piece of pragmatic capitalism and the former Colony remains an economic powerhouse with strong British influence.

Based on intelligence documents, personal testimonies, memoirs and official histories, including material only declassified in 2010, Guarding Hitler provides the reader with a fascinating inside look at the secret world of Hitler's security and domestic arrangements. The book focuses in particular on both the official and private life of Hitler during the latter part of the war, at the Wolfs Lair at Rastenburg, and Hitler's private residence at Berchtesgaden, the Berghof.Guarding Hitler manages to offer fresh insights into the life and routine of the Fuhrer, and most importantly the often indiscreet opinions, observations and activities of the little people who surrounded Hitler but whose stories have been overshadowed by the great affairs of state.It covers not only the plots against Hitler's life but the way security developed as a result. His use of doubles is examined as is security whilst traveling by land or air.As little has been written about the security and domestic life of Adolf Hitler, Guarding Hitler allows the reader to delve deeper into this previously overlooked but nonetheless fascinating aspect of the world's most infamous man.

This inspiring book examines the often incredible and nearly always tragic examples of Jewish resistance in ghettos and concentration camps during the Nazis ‘Final Solution’. It shows that the Warsaw Uprising in Poland during April to May 1944 was not the only occasion of defiant opposition. Throughout the Nazis’ extermination programme Jews and other prisoners fought back against their murderers, often with stunning results. The Germans were nearly always taken by surprise by the sudden emergence of armed Jewish resistance and often paid dearly. This happened in ghettos and concentration campos (including Treblinka, Auschwitz, Syrels and Sobibor) throughout Poland and the Ukraine. Some Jews tried to stop the machinery of the Holocaust by rising up and destroying the gas chambers while others bravely tried to take over an extermination camp and escape en masse. In virtually every case the brave men and women who volunteered to fight back paid with their lives. Importantly these men and women are not just portrayed as victims but also as brave and resourceful fighters and resisters against their tragic fate. These are stories that are uplifting, inspiring and often profoundly moving.EPUB3: Reflowable

The brutal Japanese treatment of Allied POWs in WW2 has been well documented. The experiences of British, Australian and American POWs on the Burma Railway, in the mines of Formosa and in camps across the Far East, were bad enough. But the mistreatment of those used as guinea pigs in medical experiments was in a different league. The author reveals distressing evidence of Unit 731 experiments involving US prisoners and the use of British as control groups in Northern China, Hainau Island, New Guinea and in Japan. These resulted in loss of life and extreme suffering. Perhaps equally shocking is the documentary evidence of British Government use of the results of these experiments at Porton Down in the Cold War era in concert with the US who had captured Unit 731 scientists and protected them from war crime prosecution in return for their cooperation. The author’s in-depth research revealed that, not surprisingly, archives have been ‘combed’ of much incriminating material but enough remains to paint a thoroughly disturbing story.

The book examines examples of outstanding courage exhibited by people living in modern Britain. These include British servicemen and servicewomen serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, police officers, and ordinary civilians in Britain and around the world. All of the cases cited have been awarded gallantry medals by the British government since 2000.The purpose of the book is to inspire modern British people. In the past, the heroes of Empire were well-known and respected, but since the Second World War people have tended to associate heroism with celebrity instead. We hear footballers and actors described as heroes, and this demeans the word, and the real heroes of modern British society. The generations that fought the First and Second World Wars have often been held up as the greatest generations of British people. This book shows Britons that the kind of grit, determination, courage and willingness to have a go exhibited by previous generations are as alive now as they ever were, and heroes can come from all walks of life and all ethnic groups in modern Britain.

While there have been many fine books covering the appalling experiences and great courage of the many thousands of POWscaptured by the victorious Japanese during late 1941 and early 1942, escape accounts are much rarer. This is due in large part tothe fact that only a comparatively small number of brave souls attempted to escape to freedom rather than suffer brutality,starvation and very possibly death as POWs. However, as Never Surrender vividly describes, there were a significant number who took this desperate course. Escapersfaced challenges far more daunting than those in German hands. They were Westerners in an alien, hostile environment; the terrain and climate were extreme; disease was rife; their physical condition was weak; there was every chance of starvation andbetrayal and, if captured, they faced, at best, the harshest punishment and, at worst, execution. The author draws on escapeattempts from Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Borneo and China by officers and men of the British, Commonwealth andUS armed forces. As this superbly researched and uplifting book reveals, few escapers found freedom but all are inspiring examples of outstandingand, indeed, desperate courage. The stories told within these pages demonstrate the best and worst of human spirit.

April 1945. As Allied bombs rain down on Europe, a 400-year-old institution looks set to be wiped off the face of the Earth. The famous white Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, unique and precious animals representing centuries of careful breeding, are scattered across rural Austria and Czechoslovakia in areas soon to be swallowed up by Soviet forces - there, doubtless, to become rations for the Red Army.Their only hope lies with the Americans: what if a small, highly mobile US task force could be sent deep behind German lines, through fanatical SS troops, to rescue the horses before the Soviets arrive. Just five light tanks, a handful of armoured cars and jeeps, and 300 battle-weary GIs must plunge headlong into the unknown on a rescue mission that could change the course of European history.So begins Operation Cowboy, the greatest Second World War story that has never been fully told. GIs will join forces with surrendered German soldiers and liberated prisoners of war to save the world's finest horses from fanatical SS and the ruthless Red Army in an extraordinary battle during the last few days of the war in Europe.

Operation Swallow is the true story of how a small group of American soldiers, inspired by a charismatic but reluctant leader named Hans Kasten, worked to save hundreds of fellow servicemen from a Nazi plan to turn Jewish prisoners of war into concentration camp slaves.It begins in the snowy forests of the Ardennes during Christmas 1944 and ends at the charnel house of Buchenwald concentration camp in spring 1945. It is a remarkable battle of wills between a young GI thrust into a leadership position he didn't want and an SS officer who will stop at nothing to complete his orders.Written from personal testimonies and official documents, it is an escape story replete with courage, sacrifice, torture, despair and salvation. Even more remarkably, it is a story that has barely been told before, a chapter of US military history that the American government tried to suppress for decades - and an uplifting story that deserves to be widely known.

The book examines examples of outstanding courage exhibited by people living in modern Britain. These include British servicemen and servicewomen serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, police officers, and ordinary civilians in Britain and around the world. All of the cases cited have been awarded gallantry medals by the British government since 2000.The purpose of the book is to inspire modern British people. In the past, the heroes of Empire were well-known and respected, but since the Second World War people have tended to associate heroism with celebrity instead. We hear footballers and actors described as ‘heroes’, and this demeans the word, and the real heroes of modern British society. The generations that fought the First and Second World Wars have often been held up as the greatest generations of British people. This book shows Britons that the kind of grit, determination, courage and willingness to ‘have a go’ exhibited by previous generations are as alive now as they ever were, and heroes can come from all walks of life and all ethnic groups in modern Britain.

Children of the Camps: Japan’s Last Forgotten Victims tells the truly heart-rending stories of Caucasian and Eurasian children who ended up imprisoned inside Japanese internment camps throughout Asia. It is written from the perspective of the survivors, who are all elderly today, and the effects that it had on their lives and families.Survivors’ testimonies run right through the book, as we follow their traumatic change of circumstance and experiences from prewar privilege into the horrors of the internment camps and finally the uncertainties of the immediate postwar period when liberation often meant discovery of the loss of parents.The Japanese treatment of Allied children was as harsh and murderous as that of their parents and military POWs, but this whole episode has been overlooked. Children were plucked from comfortable colonial lives and forced to mature hastily in terrible circumstances, where survival became a daily game, and where their lives were constantly threatened by disease, starvation and physical abuse.Many of these children were separated from their parents, or they saw their families destroyed by the Japanese. Most witnessed almost daily episodes of bestial violence that no child ever should see, and the entire cumulative experience has had a deep and lasting effect into their adult lives. They are among the last victims of Japanese aggression, and even over 60 years later many carry the mental and physical scars of that atrocious episode.

This disturbing book reveals the extent of the truly shocking activities of the Kempeitai, Japan’s feared military and secret police. The book opens by explaining the origins, organization and roles of the Kempeitai apparatus, which exercised virtually unlimited power throughout the Japanese Empire. The author reveals their criminal and collaborationist networks, which extorted huge sums of money from hapless citizens and businesses. They ran the Allied POW gulag system which treated captives with merciless and murderous brutality. Other Kempeitai activities included biological and chemical experiments on live subjects, the Maruta vivisection campaign and widespread slave labour, including ‘Comfort Women’ drawn from all races.Their record of reprisals against military and civilians was unrelenting. For example, Colonel Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo in 1942 resulted in a campaign of revenge not just against captured airmen but thousands of Chinese civilians. Their actions amounted to genocide on a grand scale.The author backs up his text with first hand testimonies from those survivors who suffered at the hands of this evil organization. He examines how the guilty were brought to justice and the resulting claims for compensation. As a result Japan’s Gestapo provides comprehensive evidence of the ruthlessness of the Kempeitai against the white and Asian peoples under their control.

This book examines the period between the unconditional surrender of Japan on 14 August 1945, and the arrival of Allied liberation forces in Japanese-occupied territories after 2 September 1945. The delay handed the Japanese a golden opportunity to set their house in order before Allied war crimes investigators arrived. After 14 August groups of Allied POWs were brutally murdered. Vast amounts of documentation concerning crimes were burned ahead of the arrival of Allied forces. POW facilities and medical experimentation installations were either abandoned or destroyed. Perhaps the greatest crimes were continuing deaths of Allied POWs from starvation, disease and ill-treatment after the Japanese surrender. The blame rests with the American authorities, and particularly General MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific. MacArthur expressly forbade any Allied forces from liberating Japanese occupied territories before he had personally taken the formal Japanese surrender aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on 2 September 1945. Vice Admiral Lord Mountbatten, Commanding Allied forces in Southeast Asia, protested against this policy, believing that pandering to MacArthur’s vanity and ego would mean condemning many starving and sick prisoners to death. Deaths among British and Commonwealth POWs were significant as opposed to American POWs who were already largely liberated in the Philippines and elsewhere.

Ironically while the Japanese Navy followed many of the Royal Navy's traditions and structures, it had a totally different approach to the treatment of its foes. The author has uncovered a plethora of outrages against both servicemen and civilians which make chilling and shocking reading. These range from the execution of POWs, the abandonment of survivors to the elements and certain starvation to the infamous Hell Ships. The author who lives in the Far East examines the different culture that led to these frequent and appalling atrocities. This is a serious and fascinating study of a dark chapter in Naval warfare history.

This book details the treatment of Allied service-women, female civilians and local women by the Japanese occupation forces. While a number of memoirs have been published there is no dedicated volume. It chronicles the massacres of nurses (such as that at Alexandra Hospital, Singapore), disturbing atrocities on both Europeans and Asians, and accounts of imprisonment. It reveals how many ended up in Japanese hands when they should have been evacuated. Also covered are the hardships of long marches and the sexual enslavement of white and native women (so called 'Comfort Women'). The book is a testimony both to the callous and cruel behavior of the Japanese and to the courage and fortitude of those who suffered at their hands.

The Author, who lives in Shanghai, sets out to demonstrate that the British military has been at the forefront of many of the great changes that have swept China over the last two centuries.He devotes chapters to the various wars, military adventures and rebellions that regularly punctuated Sino/British relationships since the 1st Opium War 1839-1842\. This classic example of Imperial intervention saw the establishment of Hong Kong and Shanghai as key trading centres. The Second Opium War and the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions saw the advancement of British influence despite determined but unsuccessful efforts by the Chinese to loosen the grip of Western domination. The Royal Navys might ensured that, by gunboat diplomacy, trading rights and new posts were established and great fortunes made.But in the 1940s the British grossly underestimated Japanese military might and intentions with disastrous results. After the Second World War the British returned to find that the Americans had supplanted them. The Communists victory in the Civil War sealed British and Western fates and, while Hong Kong remained under British control until 1997, the end of British rule was almost inevitable. But the handover was a masterly piece of pragmatic capitalism and the former Colony remains an economic powerhouse with strong British influence.